It was a year of stuff and things. It was a year when we lost some talented folks too soon, including Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman and Nik Beat. It was a year when liking a Woody Allen movie became a virtual hate crime. It was a year when bad people killed other people and stuff blew up, which happens every year anyway. It was a year that included the hundredth anniversary of World War I and the seventy-fifth anniversary of World War II, but hardly anybody noticed.

It was also a year when I somehow managed to remain employed full-time for the entire twelve months, and when I also wrote a lot of other stuff online. I went to New York City twice, and I attended tapings of both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, saw Chris O’Dowd and James Franco act on Broadway and even got Bryan Cranston’s autograph. I even did karaoke in Montreal a couple of times, goddamn it. I played lots of board games, ate too much pasta and drank too much cider.

How is 2015 going to be any different, you ask? Okay, you didn’t ask, but tough. How?

Because I’m about to release a new album.

My third spoken-word album (not a physical CD this time, but a download card from the Internet) is going to be titled This Album is NIT FENNY. For those whose jaws are now hanging in lost, distressed bafflement, “nit fenny” is stuck-up-reactionary-college-student-ese for “not funny”. To demonstrate, say the title out loud in a whiny voice with your teeth clenched.

The album will be funny, of course. At least I think so. The usual suspects won’t. Hence the title.

But before the new album comes out (sometime before May, I anticipate), there’s one thing happening that also happened in 2014. And that thing is this: I’m featuring at Outrageous, at the Central, once again.

Hosted by the unbearably sexy Elizabeth Burns and attended by some loud, crazy kids who don’t like the quiet reverence of conventional poetry readings nor the militant political correctness of the slam scene, Outrageous is Toronto’s most out-RAAAAAY-jus spoken-word show. I’m there near the end of this month; look for me doing some of my more irreverent material.

And I’ll be doing other gigs later on. Not all of them local. Check the right sidebar yourself, because I can’t do everything for you, now, can I?

I’ve written some new reviews and op-ed pieces for Digital Journal too, so make with the clicky and have a good read.